


timebomb

by aeicx



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Bodyswap, Canon Divergence, F/M, Maybe - Freeform, Mystery, Slow Build, mostly max/nathan centric, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-05-19 12:33:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5967537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeicx/pseuds/aeicx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Max awakens to a dimly lit room and the sound of Victoria's voice, she can't say that she'd ever expected to wake up in Nathan Prescott's bed. Or his shirt. Or his jeans.</p><p>She hadn't really anticipated looking into the mirror and seeing his face, either.</p><p>This is going to be one hell of an afternoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. fuckboys aren't supposed to have 20/20 vision

Max awakens in a cold sweat.

She turns her head at an angle and rests a hand against the nape of her neck. It’s clammy and sticky, just as it usually is after she’s had a nightmare.

She blinks wearily, widening her eyes and squinting at her hands and jeans. Even in the dark, she can see that the edges are too soft, too vague. Her vision is usually fuzzy first thing in the morning, but her eyes feel a little swollen, like they’re recovering from a couple blows.

As soon as she rolls to her left, her foot catches onto the dresser next to her mattress; her torso’s thrown onto the floor with a yelp, leaving her body at a weirdly acute angle.

Why can’t she see?

Admittedly, rolling off the bed has happened before, and so she immediately notices that something about the incline is off. It’s a little more compact than usual.

Was that dresser even there in the first place? When was the last time she’d done any renovations? Certainly not last night, she’d been too busy with—

Last night.

What was she doing last night?

Max draws a blank, and it’s suddenly impossible to recollect her last memory. What was she doing last night?

Something tight mounts in her chest, rising and falling in short, quick breaths.

Maybe all those years of focusing on her computer screen have finally built up to this—to poor eyesight.

As Max shuffles about, hands and limbs outstretched wide, searching, she slams her left foot into what feels like a hard block of wood. She curses loudly, kneeling down and rocking back and forth, groaning in pain. Her fingers are splayed out in all of her hazy, fucked up confusion, unsure as to where to go.

Why is the room so _dark?_

 _Okay,_ Max thinks. She can make out vague shapes and splotches of color, but it’s difficult to do so in such low lighting. She usually keeps her blinds up.

_Just find the door. This is your room, idiot._

She gets up and reaches for the walls, tracing the perimeter with her fingers, until she comes across what feels like a light switch. She flips it.

Once light floods the room, relief washes over Max. It’s followed by a wave of shock, because even in her foggy vision, she can clearly see that this isn’t her room.

What the fuck?

This is wrong.

Max really, really needs to remember what happened last night. Like, right now. What the fuck did she do? How did she end up here? And why is it that she still can’t _see_?

Something flashes in her memory. A rhythm she can feel in her throat, with vibrations echoing as loud as the music itself.

Music. Loud music. So very, very loud, with flashing lights and people, people dancing, people laughing, people getting angry, just people. Too many of them rubbing up against each other, too lax, too close. Too much of everything.

Red and blue and green rush through Max’s eyes, and just like that, the memory is gone.

“Come on _,_ ” she tells herself, gritting her teeth. _Think._

What’s particularly disconcerting is the absence of that something _—_ that one gaping aperture in her memory, usually so full of reason—lingering in the back of her mind. The incident that’s to resolve her suspicions and still the blood roaring in her ears. It’s supposed to _be_ there. And it is—but at the same time, it’s not.

Something’s wrong, and Max can’t seem to precisely recall what she’d done the night before. And even if she could remember, she’s not entirely sure if it’ll give her the answers she’s looking for.

The room is filled with shelves and a couple dressers, organized and clean, with the exemption of a few items strewn across the floor. She toes at one particular clump in uncertainty, only to find that it’s some article of clothing that smells strangely of alcohol. She recoils.

She’s recognized, however, that the room’s general blueprint is comparable to those of her own dorm at Blackwell. A part of her wants to take comfort in knowing that she’s still on campus, but for some reason, it just makes it all the more unsettling.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Nathan?”

Max freezes. Nathan? Is this Nathan’s room?

There’s no way. It can’t be.

“Nathan? Are you there?”

Who is that?

Whoever’s on the other side of the door huffs.

Victoria.

“I know you’re there, Nathan. Hayden, like, told me you didn't show up this morning. Did something happen?”

Max scrambles for a place to hide at once. Under the blankets, in the closet, anything. Wherever she can go. But she can’t fucking _see,_ and of course she just _has_ to run into another goddamn bookshelf, so she hunches over and lets out a cross between a whisper and a shout, hopping around and raising her arms up and down in pain like she’s some stupid ballerina—

The door clicks open. “Jesus Christ, you never pick up your phone! When will y—“

It’s an interesting prospect: Victoria, made up in her usual attire and preened to precision, and Max, squinting in pain, hopping about Nathan Prescott’s room. Disheveled, flustered, and visibly tousled to the point of exasperation.

Victoria, amazingly, does not berate Max, nor glare at her. Instead, she pinches the bridge of her nose with one hand and rests the other on her hip, sighing and shaking her head.

“Oh, my god. Do you even—okay. So you had a rough night.” Victoria raises her gaze to meet Max straight in the eye, and to be honest, she kind of looks like she has to pee. Or maybe she just has to sneeze. Either way, Max can feel the discomfort practically radiating off of her. “Sorry. I didn’t know—“ Victoria begins, but Max cuts her off loudly, and once she starts, she can’t stop.

“I swear to god I wasn’t doing anything, I just woke up and I had no idea where I was, I don’t know what happened and everything is blurry and—and—“ Max blabbers, and Victoria looks at her like she’s lost her mind, and maybe she has, but the sudden outburst has practically tipped her to the breaking point because it feels like she can’t breathe and she’s so, _so_ confused right now, she doesn’t know what to do—

“Hey, hey!” Victoria says. “Jesus, relax! It’s okay.” She steps over the pile of clothes on the floor and heads towards Max, who’s hovering somewhere between the door and the bookshelf behind her, as though she’s afraid to touch anything within the vicinity.

“What are you freaking out about this time? Did something happen?”

This time? The level of concern in Victoria’s tone throws her off.

They have never interacted like this before. Victoria has never looked at her, not like that. Not with that crease in the middle of her brow. She’s narrowed her eyes and shot daggers and furrowed her brow in irritation at Max, but never like this.

What the hell is going on?

Mistaking Max’s silence for reserve, Victoria turns and grabs something beside Nathan's bed. “Here,” she says. Max warily eyes said object in hand.

Victoria sighs and reaches forward, sliding something above and onto Max’s ears.

There’s a frame bordering her line of sight, but everything is suddenly fine-tuned to high definition. Max centers in on the lint hanging off of Victoria’s cashmere sweater, the red jacket on the carpet. The dust particles hanging in the air, floating amidst streaks of light that burst from the windows. She spots the faultless lipstick stained below the cupid’s bow of Victoria’s lips, the glistening pearls hanging above her chest. The monochrome photos suspended high above the bedframe and aligned to perfection.

“I can't believe you forgot your fucking glasses,” Victoria mutters. “Are you high or something?”

Max has never worn glasses in her life.

“I know you feel like shit, but could you _please_ , like. At least pick up your phone.” Victoria sets a sleek black cell phone in Max’s hands. She runs her thumb over the screen and presses the button at the bottom of the device. It doesn’t light up—it’s probably dead—but Max can still see something.

She raises the phone closer to her face, catching her reflection in the black screen.

She cannot breathe.

“I mean, I know it’s dead now, but it doesn’t hurt to charge it every once in a while. Where were you last night, anyway? You missed out.” Victoria’s rambling on about something incomprehensible. Her words are fuzzy and muted, like she’s speaking through a screen.

“I,” Max says, and she realizes now why her voice sounds so hoarse. Deep, deeper than her own.

But it doesn’t make sense. It can’t.

Because when she tries to gaze at her reflection again, Nathan Prescott is looking right back at her.


	2. i told you he was snorting coke

The phone, now a mere black mass sitting in the palm of her hand, seems to tug at her body weight, dragging her down and shoving her deep through the bristly carpet of Nathan Prescott’s dormitory. The pressure takes hold of her lungs and clutches tight—relinquishing its grip only just in time for her to wheeze in the form of a small “Huh?”

Victoria—Victoria _Chase_ —looks torn between rolling her eyes and contorting her eyebrows in a display of what could be genuine concern. Max doesn’t doubt the proximity between them—Victoria and Nathan, not Max—but then again, she’s not sure if it’s quite the same with regards to her present situation.

There is a black rim bordering her frame of vision, and she’s all too conscious of the weight of the glasses tucked behind her ears.

“Are you okay?” Victoria says, softer this time. “You look like you’ve just tripped.”

“I—I’m not—“ Max begins. She cuts herself off, choking as soon as the first note escapes her throat.

Nathan’s voice has never quite stooped down as low to a rumble, but the abuse that his vocal cords have endured from all that smoking has yet to impair the proper functionalities of his biological framework. Max’s voice should come out quite shrill—instead, it emerges an octave lower than per usual.

This isn’t real. It can’t be. She immediately thrusts out her left hand, focusing on the air and just concentrating, concentrating past the panic thrumming in her veins and the “Nathan, Nathan,” that resounds before her.

_Rewind, rewind, rewind._

Victoria scrutinizes Max, like she’s got something lodged in her eye.

“Okay.” Victoria jerks her head towards Nathan’s bed. “Sit down.”

 _No,_ Max thinks. _No, I have to rewind. I have to rewind. Rewind, rewind._

“Nathan.”

She’s going to scream.

“Nathan,” Victoria says, gently. She takes her wrist, and Max shakes her head furiously. “Just sit down for a moment, okay?”

Max looks at her for one moment, hopeless. She puts out her hand again.

Nothing.

She slumps down on the bed, wearily. Now armed with a pair of fresh spectacles, she catches a glimpse of herself—his self—in the mirror propped up by the doorway as she passes.

She’s visibly disheveled, hair caught in a flurry of nightmares and dried gel, shoulders slumped not quite far enough to conceal the broad width of her new frame. The slant of his nose, the half-crescent moons under his eyes. The details are far too clear to ever fade into a blur as she wakes up from this nightmare in relief. The sandpaper quality of her tongue, the chink of Victoria’s keychains as she rustles through her purse for something. It’s all too real. Everything.

This is real.

Max doesn’t catch the quiver in her fingers until Victoria turns around with a half-full bottle of water, cracking it open and hesitating before she passes the drink.

Max stares at the bottle, reading the label on the plastic wrapping and recalling, vaguely, that words are never actually legible in dreams as she turns the beverage around in her hand, over and over again. Her eyes scan the description through the lens of Nathan’s glasses, reading as much as she can, both comprehending and struggling to grasp the meaning of the words on the label.

This is not a dream.

“What happened?”

Max shakes her head. Her left hand twitches.

“He just,” she rasps. She clears her throat. “I just. I don’t know. I...I had a nightmare.”

What happened? How? What is she doing in Nathan Prescott’s room? How did she end up here? Is this some sort of a practical joke?

Where is her own body?

“What...happened last night?”

The churning of her stomach crumples into a tight ball of fear, burning and withering into a heap of ashes as Victoria shrugs, tossing her hands in the air with a touch of dispassion before slapping them back down against her thighs. The edge to her voice gives all too much away. “Hell if I know. You were the one who organized the next Vortex Club party. Why’d you bail?”

“I did?” Max squeaks.

Victoria stares at Max. “What did you take yesterday? Are you still high?”

“I’m not high!” Max protests. “I woke up, and I feel like—I feel like shit.” Her voice cracks. “I’m not—“

She pauses.

She can’t. Not unless she wants to get Nathan Prescott’s body locked up in a mental asylum. She can’t do that, especially not to herself.

Skeptical, cynical Victoria Chase would never believe that. Not from Nathan, not from anyone.

Who would?

“I just conked out,” Max finishes. Her voice is trembling. “Sorry. It’s been a long night. I’m just tired.”

Victoria wraps her hand around Max’s. She looks strained.

“It’s been a long month,” she says. “Don’t overwork yourself.”

Max nods weakly.

 

* * *

 

When Victoria leaves, Max’s left hand remains as lifeless as ever.

_I am Max Caulfield, eighteen years old, student at Blackwell Academy._

She recites the words, muttering incantations under her breath to stir the memories back to life.

_Daughter to Vanessa and Ryan Caulfield, once ex-best friend to Chloe Price, Kate Marsh, Warren Graham, and few others._

_I am a photographer. I am a new student. I can rewind time._

_What was I doing before I got here?_

She extracts the memories from her head and pores over them, thinking, but there’s nothing to look over, nothing to examine. She can’t think. She knows of Chloe, of her friends, but searching for a route to return to becomes a task likely to that of trying to spot a rock in a river. There’s nothing there.

The party!

The party. There’d been a party, loud and sweaty and cramped.

Victoria might have said Nathan had missed the party, but maybe Max had been there. She can retrace her steps from thereon after venturing out. And Chloe! She can find Chloe. She needs to find Chloe. She can’t do this without her. It’s just a matter of getting her to believe that Max Caulfield has gotten stuck in Nathan Prescott’s body.

How is that going work? And without her time travel powers.

Why won’t her powers work?

Max grits her teeth and groans in frustration, head pounding as her mind whirs in every single direction she can think of. Her vision blurs, and her eyes sting with tears as she peers at herself in the mirror.

She pokes and pinches and scratches every inch of Nathan’s body that she can reach, hoping to rouse herself on the slight chance that this is all a mere figment of her imagination. She rubs her nails against the fabric of his jeans, presses the flat of her palm against a chest that lacks the curve of her breasts and waist sans the concave arc to her hips. Everything is boxy, flat, and angular. The room, she thinks, examining the black interior of Nathan’s dorm, is no different.

_My body._

She needs to find it. If she’s in here, in Nathan’s body, there has to be someone possessing her own. There is an inverse that she has to correct. She needs to find it.

Max spots the red letterman jacket on Nathan’s bed, ruffling her hair and somewhat smoothing it back before throwing on the article of clothing. She must reek of alcohol, judging from the smell wafting off of the clothes strewn over the floor, but when has anyone ever expected any different from Nathan?

She leaves the door unlocked and walks out. The halls, lit by the afternoon sunlight shining through the windows, are mostly empty, with the exception of a couple boys walking around on their phones. Classes must be in session, she thinks. Unless it’s a weekend.

What day is it?

Max spins around the corner. The next door she lands her eyes on reads “Warren Graham”. The first three letters of his last name are crossed out and replaced by the words “GAY” in bold, and Max rolls her eyes raising her hand to knock twice. And waits.

She knocks again faster, harder.

“He’s in class, dude,” someone shouts.

She curses under her breath.

“Whoa, what the fuck? Nathan?”

She turns. Zachary Riggins is holding a football, staring with an open mouth as another boy in a hoodie widens his eyes.

 _Shit_. “Um, yeah,” Max says. “Just seeing if this, uh. If he can give me his notes.” She nods at Warren’s door, wondering if he would actually ever allow anyone as unlikeable as Nathan to purchase copies of his classwork.

“Bro, where’ve you been? We thought you were up in there trying to treat the drip or something.”

“Yeah, we thought you were dead.”

 _So this is what happens when Nathan misses a party._ “Oh, you know. Just been really sick. Dog died. Getting better now.” She’s about to make a beeline for the boy’s dormitory exit when she stops. “Hey, you know where, uh, Caulfield is?”

Zachary and his friend blink.

“What?”

“You know. Max Caulfield. Kind of a social outcast, pretty nosy, carries a camera with her everywhere.”

“Dude,” Zachary says, shaking his head. “No.”

“What?”

“I told you he was snorting coke,” the other jock says. Zachary simply tosses his football and mutters something else that remotely sounds like _gonorrhea_ , but she’s not sure. They walk away, leaving her with more questions than answers.

 

* * *

 

When Max walks out the door and onto the field surrounding the main entrance, the bell rings, and a flurry of students flood onto the grass and pavement in their transition to the next class.

She catches sight of a wave of familiar faces—Evan, Alyssa, Logan, and—

“Dana!” An overwhelming wave of relief washes over. She swallows the lump in her throat and sprints over at once. Her knees shake in the effort.

Dana looks surprised. “Nathan!” she says. “Wow, you’re out. How are you doing?” She looks Max up and down, probably taking in the labored breath and the flush in Max’s cheeks, alongside the dark circles and slightly shaking legs.

“I’m fine,” Max wheezes. She’s not used to running in this body. In any other body, she almost says, but she keeps her mouth shut and takes joy in the lack of discrepancy—Dana looks exactly the same as before. Healthy, though a little weary. Almost a little sad.

“Have you seen Max Caulfield? I need to talk to her.” Max bends over, resting her hands on her knees. Nathan really needs to work out more.

She’s waited two seconds too long for a response when she looks up. “Have you seen her?” Max repeats.

“Stop it, Nathan,” Dana says. Her voice is steely.

“What?”

“Just stop.” Dana’s narrowed her eyes. She has never looked this upset, not in Max’s memory. “You’re not being funny.”

“What did I say?”

When Dana turns to leave, Max has to unfreeze herself before she trails behind. They pass a gaggle of cheerleaders standing next to a brown bulletin board, just outside the entrance to the school building.

“Dana, wait!”

Dana suddenly reaches out, ripping a poster off the board and balling it up before she chucks it at Max’s chest. “Does this answer your question?” she bellows, and Dana’s yelling, actually yelling, uncaring as to whether or not she’s causing a scene in the middle of campus. “Does this make you feel any fucking better?” Her eyes are rimmed with tears.

“What did I say? What—I didn’t—“

“Just leave me alone,” she responds. Her voice breaks.

Max watches Dana’s back disappear behind the school doors. She picks up the crumpled poster and smooths it out, watching as Rachel Amber’s face emerges from beneath the folds of the notice.

_She’s still missing._

She flips over the paper, searching for another side, a hint to the mystery. Nothing.

When Max looks up, she sees a missing persons poster complete with a photo of Rachel plastered onto the bulletin board. For a split second, she thinks of Chloe, and the element of Rachel’s disappearance serves as an odd sort of comfort to all of Max’s fright. Nothing has changed.

Then she spots another poster, making out the image of a smiling, mousy girl with freckles and brown bangs.

It’s a picture of herself, and it's positioned directly under the “MISSING” label.

_"Max Caulfield, aged 18, was last seen 10 October 2013, at a Blackwell Academy party in Arcadia Bay, Oregon—"_

Max snatches the poster off the board immediately. Her chest is heaving, blood roaring in her ears as she makes to scan the description, but there’s another poster stuck to the display, right underneath her own.

Mark Jefferson’s photo leers from the third missing persons poster on the bulletin board.


End file.
